By Lynda Sexson
When I die, if you need to weep, cry for someone walking on the street beside you.
And when you need me, put your arms around others and give them what you need to give me. Continue reading
Quotes
Prayer and Action
By Rabbi David Saperstein
“In the Jewish tradition, the separation between prayer and action is slight. We’re mindful of the admonition in Isaiah where God says, ‘I don’t want your fast and your sacrifice. I want you to deal your bread to the hungry, tear apart the chains of the oppressed.’
The Long Loneliness
“The only answer to this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community. The living together, working together, sharing together, loving God and loving our brother and sister, and living close to them in community so we can show our love for God.” -Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist, and anarchist who started the Catholic Worker movement.
On Peace
“Peace is more than the absence of war, more than the maintenance of balance of power between enemies. It is more than the firm hold of a dictator that, for the moment, involves no bloodshed. But then, what is peace? Continue reading
Jewish Quotations on Spirituality and Action
Rabbi Hillel: “If not now, when?”
Rabbi Yaakov Meyer: “Even the seemingly insignificant act is significant when it is part of many cumulative acts. Great people aren’t made from one great action; rather they become great via consistently good ‘small acts.'” Continue reading
Jewish Quotations on Wisdom and Wonder
Solomon Ibn Gabirol: “Man is wise only while in search of wisdom; when he imagines he has attained it, he is a fool.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement… Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” Continue reading
Friendship with the Poor
“If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.” -Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation
Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, OP is a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest, regarded as one of the founders of Latin American liberation theology.
Where True Identity Lies
By Sue Monk Kidd
When I was six years old someone asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” At that age, living in a small Georgia town in the 1950s, I could only think of four careers for women—they were the only stories I knew: teacher, nurse, secretary, and housewife. By some process of elimination, I picked nurse. From that moment on, I began to get little nurse kits for my birthdays. Continue reading
Religious Texts on Service
Baha’i Tradition of Service (Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha)
One amongst His Teachings is this, that love and good faith must so dominate the human heart that men will regard the stranger as a familiar friend, the malefactor as one of their own, the alien even as a loved one, the enemy as a companion dear and close.
Becoming at Home in the Universe
Derived from Sharon Daloz Parks, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams (Pages 34-35)
Reflecting on the political cynicism of American society and the ironic detachment that characterizes many in his generation, twenty-four-year-old Jedediah Purdy writes: “We doubt the possibility of being at home in the world, yet we desire that home above all else.” Continue reading